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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
This man is not only a liar, he's disgustingly blasé about it and appears nowhere without his "I-am-a-very-sincere-person-and-you-can-trust-me" smile. He's correct that "insurgents" are responsible for civilian deaths, but the majority of civilian deaths has been caused by coalition air strikes on densely populated areas. Of course, he has already rejected the Lancet study (mentioned below) which says so. The Lancet: "Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most of the violent deaths."
He is also clearly wrong in his assertion that the Iraqi health mininstry is best placed to tally the deaths. They, as I understand it, are reliant on hospital reports, and it is estimated that possibly less than a third of deaths take place in hospitals. Two-thirds or more occur away from hospitals and the bodies are buried immediately in accordance with Islamic law.
"London, England (AP) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected demands that he set up an independent inquiry into the number of civilians killed in Iraq.
"Some 46 campaigners, including former British ambassadors, eminent academics, a bishop and a former British military chief, on Wednesday sent an open letter to Blair saying Britain and the United States have a duty to count the number of people killed in the ongoing violence.
"But Blair insisted the Iraqi health ministry was best placed to tally the dead, and said insurgents were to blame for civilian casualties ...
"The open letter marked the launch of a campaign by health charity Medact and the Iraq Body Count group for an independent inquiry into the number of civilians killed.
"It follows a study in The Lancet journal, which in October estimated that 98,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since the outbreak of hostilities in March last year."
I've been wondering lately why the media now consistently call the bad guys in Iraq "insurgents", so I had to look it up.
[n] a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment [n] a person who takes part in an armed rebellion against the constituted authority (especially in the hope of improving conditions) [adj] in opposition to a civil authority or government Source: HyperDictionary
Now, I admit that I didn't know the meaning and had assumed it meant bad guys coming from another place, such as over the border. By way of defence, I must plead, your honour, that it sort of suggests people 'surging in'.
Before I looked it up I was discussing it with Baz le Tuff and we were in agreement that the journalists, even from the fairly progressive Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), never call them anything but 'insurgents' these days. Certainly never 'freedom fighters'. You won't hear any reporter calling these bad guys 'blokes defending their block against an invading army' (by 'bad guys' I mean the scruffy, bearded ones getting mowed down in vast numbers by weapons as big as houses to the applause of US soldiers). Baz and I both prettty much theorised that all these 'embedded har har' 'reporters har har' are coached by Army PR on what to call cannon fodder.
Fortunately, Baz le Tuff took some time out of his very busy schedule (he's putting on a wombat rodeo for crippled kiddies with suspected tropical horticulture aptitude) to assign his personal secretary, Mister Hister, the task of finding out why all this is so.
The first link says, inter alia, "The assault on Fallujah is intended to eliminate 'insurgents' from one of the most important centers of opposition in Iraq and is therefore a significant moment in the struggle to control the country. The term 'insurgent' has become the accepted way for both hawks and doves to refer to armed opposition in Iraq and is now used as if its meaning were unproblematic. The most recent studies, for example, assume a common understanding of the word and concentrate instead on strategic, battleground matters. Yet the term is far from being transparent and is also loaded with political claims. To investigate it is to consider the nature of the enemy. This is, self-evidently, an important exercise: we cannot claim to comprehend the world unless we can be sure that we are describing it in the most appropriate language. Ill-fitting descriptions may have far-reaching consequences for public understanding and formal policy-making."
The second one (from the Seattle Post) says, beneath the heading
Resist biased words: The fighters are not 'insurgents'
"On Nov. 3, 2003, the staff at the Los Angeles Times received a memo from an editor forbidding the use of the term 'resistance fighters' to describe those resisting the American military occupation of Iraq. The term 'romanticizes the work and goals of those killing GI's,' the memo said, according to the Web site L.A. Observed.
"In a subsequent interview with Dan Whitcomb of Reuters, Melissa McCoy, the editor who issued the memo, claimed that the term evoked images of the French Resistance in World War II and of the Jews fighting the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
"McCoy then said that the decision to ban the term had been made by top editorial staff and was not a result of readers' complaints, Whitcomb reports in the same Nov. 5, 2003 article. In fact, she was not aware of any reader complaints about the Times' use of the term prior to the decision to ban it.
"Lately, 'insurgent' has been the media's noun of choice to describe those resisting the American occupation of Iraq. While it appears relatively infrequently in the international media, it is a favorite of National Public Radio, CNN and Fox News.
"They especially like using the term when it is unknown who in particular actually carried out an attack.
"Everyone who attacks American forces, whether former military or Baath party loyalists, Iraqi or outsider, is labeled 'insurgent.' This sets American interests as the norm and implies all non-American interests are the same.
"More importantly, the term 'insurgent' ascribes legitimacy to one side of a conflict. This is why American military leaders in the Spanish-American War, America's first war of conquest and occupation, preferred the Spanish term 'insurrectos' to describe the indigenous Filipino resistance.
"The Oxford American English Dictionary defines 'insurgent' as 'a person who rises in revolt against civil authority or a recognized government.'
"Biases and inaccuracies abound when this term is used to describe the situation in Iraq. It is clearly a matter of perspective whether or not the American occupation constitutes a 'civil authority' or a 'recognized government.' Many Iraqis and internationals certainly do not believe it does.
"In fact, whether the American occupation amounts to a recognized government is a hotly debated, politically charged question. It is easy to deduce which perspective is favored when a party is branded 'insurgent.'
"Then there is the fact that Americans really only occupy some areas in Iraq. We know from recent reports of violence and death that American forces have failed to control Falluja, a city west of the capital Baghdad. The Marine and Army divisions surrounding Falluja do not constitute a civil authority or government, so how can someone fighting them be an insurgent?
"The answer is that such a person is not an insurgent, he is a resistance fighter."
Well spotted, Mr Hister, and thank you, Baz 'Venceremos!' le Tuff.
"David T Johnson, Acting ambassador, US Embassy, London
Dear Mr Johnson,
On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.
In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.
US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.
Eliminating doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casual ties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.
But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.
Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.
Eliminating journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.
Eliminating clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".
"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.
Mr Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses."
"Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling horrific stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of fighting last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.
"In an interview with The NewStandard, Burhan Fasa'a, an Iraqi journalist who works for the popular Lebanese satellite TV station, LBC, said he witnessed US crimes up close. Burhan Fasa'a, who was in Fallujah for nine days during the most intense combat, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English.
"'Americans did not have interpreters with them', Fasa'a said, 'so they entered houses and killed people because they didn't speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and [they] shot people because [the people] didn't obey [the soldiers'] orders, even just because the people couldn't understand a word of English.'
"Fasa'a further speculated, 'Soldiers thought the people were rejecting their orders, so they shot them. But the people just couldn't understand them'.
"Fasa'a says American troops detained him. They interrogated him specifically about working for the Arab media, he said, and held him for three days. Fasa'a and other prisoners slept on the ground with no blankets. He said prisoners were made to go to the bathroom in handcuffs, using one toilet in the middle of the camp.
"'During the nine days I was in Fallujah, all of the wounded women, kids and old people, none of them were evacuated', Fasa'a said. 'They either suffered to death, or somehow survived.'
"Many refugees tell stories of having witnessed US troops killing already injured people, including former fighters and noncombatants alike.
"'I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks', said Kassem Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Fallujah. 'This happened so many times.'"
"Dahr Jamail is originally from Anchorage, Alaska. He has spent a total of 5 months in occupied Iraq, and has now returned to continue reporting on the occupation. One of only a few independent reporters in Iraq, Dahr will be using the DahrJamailIraq.com website and mailing list to disseminate his dispatches and will continue as special correspondent for Flashpoints Radio. This article first appeared in The NewStandard."
The best free tag board I have found for my websites Wilson's Almanac has a Tagger tag board in two places: http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/corrigenda.html and here at the Blogmanac. This free, self-hosted, ad-free Luxury Edition tag board is designed by Brian Benzinger of venture nine solutions http://venturenine.com/ It is excellent, and so is Brian's support. This is an unsolicited endorsement.
Rotate it in a clockwise direction for about 10 seconds...
While your foot is spinning, use your Right Hand to draw an invisible 6 in the air...
Involuntarily, and quite immediately, your Right Foot will begin a counter-clockwise spin, and there's nothing you can do about it. Source, sent in by Kayla, that maniac of Almaniacs from CA, USA>. [It needs explanatory notes for the words 'clockwise' and 'counter-clockwise' for anyone under 30.]
Grandfather's ghost for sale on e-bay. Well spotted, Baz 'I Would Never Sell My Grandfather's Ghost But I Didn't Say I Wouldn't Sell My Grandmother' le Tuff.
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Now, I admit that I didn't know the meaning and had assumed it meant bad guys coming from another place, such as over the border. By way of defence, I must plead, your honour, that it sort of suggests people 'surging in'.
"Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling horrific stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of fighting last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.
"Honey and royal jelly could become part of the arsenal of weapons against cancer, researchers say.